[Vision2020] Hawkins deal dies?

[Bill London]

According to today's Tribune, the Moscow City Council refused to cut the water rates to the Hawkins development.  Though I thought the council's original decision to sell the water to this Washington development was foolish, selling the water at cut rates would have been even more ridiculous.  I applaud the council for refusing to do so......BL
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Shopping center water deal evaporates
Moscow City council sticks to its guns on what some consider an exorbitant rate

By David Johnson 

Tuesday, September 16, 2008


MOSCOW - A proposed intergovernmental agreement that would supply Moscow city water across the state line to the planned Hawkins Companies shopping center in Whitman County appears to have all but dried up.

Members of the Moscow City Council voted unanimously Monday night to draft a letter to the Whitman County commissioners saying they won't budge on a proposed water rate of 255 percent to the development.

The decision comes on the heels of a letter from Whitman County Commission Chairman Michael Largent saying the city's proposed rate is too high. Largent also expressed concerns about Moscow's proposal for a governing board and request for regulatory oversight.

The debate comes because the Idaho Department of Water Resources required an intergovernmental agreement be struck before Idaho groundwater can be sold by a city to a private company in another state.

"A little bureaucracy. You got to love it. We're right in the middle of it," said Councilor Wayne Krauss, who spearheaded efforts to supply water to Hawkins through Whitman County.

Councilor Bill Lambert took umbrage with Largent for suggesting in a recent letter Moscow was simply trying to generate revenue through water sales. "To me that's a little of an arrogant statement," Lambert said.

But Councilor Walter Steed said Largent was right. Moscow wants to generate revenue by selling water at a higher rate outside city limits and nobody should be surprised. "That's like saying John McCain picked Sarah Palin to get elected. Well, no duh!" 

The councilors seemed to agree the Hawkins deal, as it stands now, is dead in the water. The company continues to drill wells on the site and install both water and sewer infrastructure. And it's doing so without making any contact with the various governmental entities.

"Hawkins is in the process of finishing the drilling of wells to service the project," Largent wrote in his Sept. 8 letter to Moscow City Supervisor Gary Riedner. "Once the water and sewer infrastructure is in place, the county, via a water district, will step in and take it over."

And by that time, Councilor John Weber said, the city's hope of generating revenue off the development will have evaporated. "When you come right down to it at this point, I don't see that they need us. I think that we need them."

Initially Monday night, Krauss moved the city simply abandon the idea of striking an intergovernmental agreement with Whitman County. The motion received a second, but died after Riedner said it would be better to draft the letter explaining the city's position. In essence, the council agreed to tell Largent there is room for negotiation on oversight and governing, but not on decreasing the water rate.

"Allow the county to react to that," Riedner said, "rather than for the city to put itself in jeopardy and voluntarily withdraw
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